As is the gift or the curse of any academic, our every action, no
matter how seemingly quotidian, eventually calls for reflection. Lately, for
me, like many others, I have been thinking a great deal about Facebook and
other social media. The stirrings of my meditation have been whipped into a
frenzy by a recent rash of news articles by various authors as well as a TED talk
by Sherry Turkle, “Connected, but alone?”, investigating an emerging fear that
social media is contributing to an ironic rise in feelings of disconnection and
loneliness.
The argument centers on a conundrum. We feel isolated, so we are
attracted to the hundreds of connections on Facebook (or your network of
choice) in order to reach out, only to be disappointed when the casual
relationships that abound there don’t react in a more meaningful way simply
because we have mutually agreed to inhabit the same virtual space together. The
act of “friending” (a deceptive choice of wording, in my opinion) seems to
imply a contract of caring on a deeper level, but the reality is far from
satisfying. We want more complexity, yet we turn to mechanisms that promise to
make relationships, even supposedly close ones, as easy as a click of the “like”
button. Of course, this perspective is only one potential consequence,
and it willfully and gleefully ignores the positive types of relationships
social networks can create. Still, the emotional impact of such wide-spread
phenomena should be considered – on both a cultural and an individual level –
if for no other reason than because the thought exercise is intriguing.
About a month ago in the midst of my musing, I read Stephen
Marche’s article in The Atlantic, “Is
Facebook Making Us Lonely?” While it gave me more to think about
concerning the above, it added another angle that had not occurred to me: the
connection of social networking to the American representation of isolation.
Marche writes, “the one common
feature in American secular culture is its celebration of the self that breaks
away from the constrictions of the family and the state, and, in its greatest
expressions, from all limits entirely.” He provides examples from history and
literature. The Pilgrims, the cowboy, the astronaut. Walt Whitman’s “Song of
Myself,” Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance,” Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. It’s a romantic notion. The
ultimate American is the man or woman who needs no one, who forges into the
West or into space sustained only by the human spirit. It’s a choice that
requires sacrifice; as Marche continues, the “price of self-determination and
self-reliance has often been loneliness. But Americans have always been willing
to pay that price.” Heading out to sea or into the wilderness to found new land
meant leaving behind roots and family traditions. It is true that the accounts
of the people who went West are riddled with laments of loneliness, although such
emotions didn’t slow the waves of migration.
In comparing this American
“lonesomeness of the proudly nonconformist, independent-minded, solitary stoic”
with the type of isolation that may be forming as a result of social
networking, Marche finds them to be very (and disturbingly) different. The main
point of departure he cites is Facebook’s demand for constant performance, its
“relentlessness” and its appeal to our vanity. When I first read his
statements, I nodded in agreement and felt a sense of helpless outrage that the
noble solitude of the proud American is being transformed into a staged,
never-ending marionette show. Then the part of my brain that tells my students
to question everything they read kicked in. Four points in particular come to
mind:
·
First and foremost,
we should ask: how much of the image of the “solitary American” is, if we
remove the negative connotation, a performance? Marche’s examples are literary
and cultural constructions, what we imagine ourselves as being or what we
admire rather than perhaps what we are in strict reality.
·
Second, Marche
comments that the paradoxical flip side of the solitary American coin is the
“impulse to cluster in communities that cling and suffocate.” For this, he
cites the darker elements of Pilgrim society, the Salem witch trials,
McCarthyism. Agreed, these examples are “suffocating communities,” but he fails
to mention the communities that have bonded together throughout American
history in a mutually beneficial way to survive or to share skills and
abilities (he fails to consider the Native American experience as well, but I’ll
let that go). Neither isolation nor community is necessarily positive or
negative on its own.
·
Third, is it
truly possible for social media alone to transform such a long-established
idea? If Marche’s definition of American isolationism is correct, it has been
developed and promoted throughout our history via several cultural practices. It
is difficult to connect its possible transformation just to the relatively unrelated
advent of Facebook.
·
And four – isn’t how
each of us interacts with Facebook an individual choice? Marche is careful to
state that it is not social media that is responsible for potential
transformations; on the contrary, we are making ourselves lonelier. Yet, his
final conclusion is that “Facebook
denies us a pleasure whose profundity we had underestimated: the chance to
forget about ourselves for a while, the chance to disconnect.” The link Marche does
not express is that, as “nonconformist, independent-minded” Americans, it is
our right to disconnect if we choose. We can decide not to participate blindly,
but to question the quality of our relationships.
So is Facebook making us lonely (or lonelier)? Is it changing our
image of the self-reliant, solitary American? I certainly ponder its influence
on our definitions of relationships. Ultimately, however, my stubborn conclusion
is this: only if we let it.
Kisha
[Ben’s] PS. What do you think? Please share your takes in comments
and I’ll make sure to pass ‘em along to Kisha!
6/9 Memory Day nominee: Luis
Kutner, the pioneering
human rights lawyer who co-founded Amnesty International, founded World
Habeas Corpus, represented the Dalai
Lama and numerous other significant clients, and created the crucial modern
concept of the “living will” (among other impressive
accomplishments).
6/10
Memory Day nominee: Maurice
Sendak!
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